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Schuylkill County voters will head to the polls and choose sundry county and municipal officers including sheriff, district attorney, mayors, city and borough council members, constables, township supervisors, school directors, tax collectors, auditors and election officials.

If absentee ballots are any indication of interest in the election, the poll workers will have their hands full.

"We have a lot," county election bureau Director Frannie Brennan said Friday. "I speak with directors in bigger counties and no one has near as many absentees as we do (for example) Lycoming and Lehigh counties are bigger than us."

Brennan said of Schuylkill County's 93,731 registered voters, 1,742 applied for absentee ballots and 1,539 returned them. By contrast, Brennan said, Lycoming County, with a larger electorate, only had about 300 absentee ballots.

All absentee ballots had to be returned by Friday, excepting those from military personnel overseas and few other emergency exceptions.

Brennan attributed Schuylkill's number to elderly voters with arthritis and other disabling conditions and a large number of college students who are away at school.

On Friday and Saturday, election workers loaded up 431 computer touch screen election machines, which were sent out to the judge of elections in each of the county's 167 precincts. The judges will take the machines to the polling places Tuesday morning. In two precincts, Pottsville 2-1 and Frackville north, the bureau is test driving electronic sign-in devices by which it hopes to eliminate, in future elections, the need for the large books currently used.

Brennan said she expects things to run smoothly Tuesday. The county introduced computerized touch screen election machines in the spring primary in 2006 and the bugs have been long worked out of the system. Moreover, should there be a power failure, the bureau is prepared, as each voting machine has its own battery backup.

Tuesday will be the last day for several polling places around the county as the number of precincts is being reduced to 125 for the spring primary.

Also in Tuesday's election, jury commissioners Ed Kleha, a Democrat, and Peggy Zimmerman, a Republican, are running unopposed for re-election. Also running unopposed are magisterial district judges David Plachko, Port Carbon, and Anthony Kilker, Shenandoah, both of whom have the Republican and Democrat nominations.

The polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Voters with questions about the location of their polling place or other matters may call the bureau at 628-1210.

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4 posted comments

Despite one's political beliefs.... do VOTE. Unfortunately in a democracy the "average" citizen remaind indifferant, under-informed and worse... un-informed. One should not only look at promises, but courage that those seeking re-election have shown by saying "NO"....to contributors or to taxpayers. Check the advertisements.... is it me or do all contain negative cheap shots that take a situation out of context.... or do they promise MORE and say they will tax LESS.... guess we need math majors.